Like I mentioned in my last post, the problem we think most execs are trying to solve with agile (are we building the right product), isn’t the problem they are actually trying to solve with agile. Walking into a room of senior vice presidents talking about empowering teams, enabling them to inspect and adapt, and figuring out requirements as they go doesn’t always resonate.

In fact… in my experience… it doesn’t often resonate.

Well then… if empowering teams, inspecting and adapting, and handling emerging requirements isn’t the problem execs are trying to solve… what exactly *is* the problem they are trying to solve. Rather than guess, I’ve gotten in the habit of asking them. Most senior leadership teams will say something like this…

We are constantly blowing past commitments, we need a way to fix that and do what we say we are going to do.

We are putting poor quality products into market, we think agile can help.

We need more transparency into what is going on.

We need more visibility into the progress we are really making on the product

We need to get products into market faster.

We don’t communicate very well, I hear agile can help us fix that.

It costs too much to deliver software, we want to use agile as a way to lower the cost to product the product.

We have way too much to do and not enough resources to get all the work done.

Support work is constantly interrupting new product development

Much less frequently, we’ll hear answers like the following…

We are trying to better understand our market and are putting out the wrong products

We deliver on time, on cost, and on budget but the product wasn’t successful in market.

We are looking for better ways of incorporating customer feedback in real time.

We are looking for ways to continuously improve our processes

We want to help people be more empowered to make decisions.

It’s not that this second group of answers aren’t important… it’s not that they never come up… it’s just that when they do, they are often secondary concerns. They are derivatives of first order concerns. Sure… execs want to take more feedback from customers, build the right products, engage their people, and continuously improve; but that’s not where they are bleeding.

If I could summarize the three most important challenges execs face…at least the execs that call us… they are predictability, quality, and early return on investment. The interesting thing about these answers is that, many of the things we are trying to sell with agile directly compete with the goals of the executive team… especially when it comes to predictable outcomes. Quite often, we are selling the wrong stuff.

In my next post we are going to talk about the language we use in agile and how to begin to untangle some of the preconceptions and myths people are carrying around about how to deploy these methods. There is no right or wrong here… just getting explicit about what problems you are trying to solve and making sure we are choosing the right practices to help us get there.

Why Choose Us?

We're different

We are unique characters with our own personality and charisma. We're authentic and not afraid to be ourselves. We keep our individuality and are different to other consultants. We help our clients to be different too.

We cut the crap

No blah blah blah, we're straight-talking but we’re on your side, so always speak with respect and humility. We are honest and act with integrity. We keep things clear and simple, so we can move fast and get stuff done.​

We're experts

We are passionate about our work and ​experts in what we do. We have fun because we love what we do. But we are serious about quality and delivery. ​You won't find better people anywhere.



What People Say

“Kelly revolutionised the way our digital department operated. A true advocate of agile principles, he quickly improved internal communication within our teams and our internal clients by aligning our business and creating a much enhanced sense of transparency in the decisions the business was making. Kelly also introduced a higher sense of empowerment to the development teams...”

PETER SILVA-JANKOWSKIIPC MEDIA

“Kelly’s a leading program director with the ability to take charge from day one and keep strong momentum at both a program and project level driving prioritisation, resourcing and budgeting agendas. Kelly operates with an easy-going style and possesses a strong facilitation skill set. From my 5 months experience working with Kelly, I would recommend Kelly to program manage large scale, complex, cross company change programs both from a business and IT perspective.”

LUKE SHARKEY /STRATEGY & IMPLEMENTATION LEADERSUNCORP

“Kelly is an extremely talented and visionary leader. As such he manages to inspire all around him to achieve their best. He is passionate about agile and has a wealth of experience to bring to bear in this area. If you're 'lucky' he might even tell you all about his agile blog. Above all this, Kelly is great fun to work with. He is always relaxed and never gets stressed - and trust me, he had plenty of opportunity here! If you get the chance to work with Kelly, don't pass it up.”

GILES BENTLEY, DEVELOPMENT & OPERATIONS DIRECTORTIME INC

“Kelly is an Agile heavy-weight. He came in to assess my multi-million $ Agile development program which wasn’t delivering the right throughput. He interviewed most of the team and made some key recommendations that, when implemented, showed immediate results. I couldn’t ask for more than that except he’s a really nice guy as well.”

DAN PULHAM, DIGITAL DIRECTORTELSTRA

“Kelly and I worked together on a very large project trying to secure a new Insurer client. Kelly had fantastic commercial awareness as well as his technical expertise. Without him I would never had secured this client so I owe a lot to him. He is also a really great guy!”

GINA MILLARDGLASS'S INFORMATION SERVICES

“Kelly came to the department and has really made a huge impact on how the department communicates, collaborates and generally gets things done. We were already developing in an agile way, but Kelly has brought us even more into alignment with agile and scrum best practices, being eager to share information and willing to work with us to change our processes rather than dictate how things must be done. He is highly knowledgable about agile development (as his active blog proves) but his blog won't show what a friendly and knowledgeable guy he is. I highly recommend Kelly to anyone looking for a CTO or a seminar on agile/scrum practices - you won't be disappointed!”

ANDY JEFFRIES/TECHNICAL LEADIPC MEDIA

“Kelly was a great colleague to work with - highly competent, trustworthy and generally a nice bloke.”

HANNAH JOYCEGLASS'S INFORMATION SERVICES

“Kelly was engaged as a Program Director on a complex business and technology transformation program for Suncorp Commercial Insurance. Kelly drew on his key capabilities and depth of experience to bring together disparate parties in a harmonised way, ensuring the initiate and concept phases of the program were understood and well formulated. Excellent outcome in a very short time frame. ”

BRUCE WEIR/EGMSUNCORP

“I worked with Kelly on many projects at IPC and I was always impressed with his approach to all of them, always ensuring the most commercially viable route was taken. He is great at managing relationships and it was always a pleasure working with him.”

BEATRIZ MONTOYA/CONSUMER MARKETING DIRECTORIPC MEDIA

“I worked with Kelly whilst at Thoughtworks and found him to be a most inspiring individual, his common-sense approach coupled with a deep understanding of Agile and business makes him an invaluable asset to any organisation. I can't recommend Kelly enough.”

PETER THATCHER, SENIOR ACCOUNT DIRECTORThoughtWorks

“Kelly was a brilliant CTO and a great support to me in the time we worked together. I owe Kelly a great deal in terms of direction and how to get things done under sometimes difficult circumstances. Thanks Kelly.”